


hangman is coming down from the gallows

by nex_et_nox



Category: Batman (Comics), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8613502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nex_et_nox/pseuds/nex_et_nox
Summary: If Batman won't avenge the fourth Robin's death, the second Robin will just have to do it for him.[Before coming back to Gotham, Jason hears about Steph's death.]





	

**Author's Note:**

> based on [this post](http://redjayson.tumblr.com/post/147127122095/do-you-think-jason-cared-about-stephs-death) I made on my tumblr several months ago

Jason mostly stayed away from news of Gotham. He was busy, learning from all the people that Talia sent him to, and there was nothing he wanted to know from the city. Talia had already told him all the relevant details.

Bruce hadn’t avenged him. Bruce had replaced him.

It would only hurt to see ever more evidence of that. He needed to _focus_ , getting as good as he could possibly be, so that he could avenge his death himself.

So it wasn’t surprising that he never learned about Stephanie Brown. Not until it was too late.

Later, he could see how it came about. She was only Robin for a few months, and with Jason intentionally looking away from Gotham news except when necessary—

(when he felt so homesick he couldn’t breathe, when he needed a glimpse of the familiar violent streets and rain-slick architecture, when he couldn’t stand not knowing what was happening in Gotham anymore and even as he raged at Batman, some small part of him settled at the glimpses the reporters afforded him)

—she slipped under his radar. Talia either assumed that he already knew or didn’t want to provoke the same reaction Jason had had to Tim Drake.

Probably a mix of the two. Jason knew Talia thought bringing him all the way back had been a mistake. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she tried to stall him by sending to ever new teachers.

He tried not to let it bother him.

Jason caught a recap of the mob wars in Gotham after he’d spent almost a week out cut off from all news sources. He could feel his face set in hard lines as he watched the destruction splayed out on screen.

Then—

_There’s been no sign of Robin since the beginning of the riots, despite Batman’s reappearance._

_Is she all right?_

_Is she injured?_

_Is she—_

She.

Jason started digging.

He used every backdoor, every secret he knew from being Robin, everything he’d learned since Robin, to find out what happened to her.

(Some part of him was vindictively gleeful that the Replacement had already been replaced so soon, but his heart was sinking in his chest, because he _knew_.)

Black Mask. Leslie’s clinic. Stephanie Brown.

Jason found his answers.

He destroyed the room he was in, part of a safe house on the edge of a city. He screamed, curses and dire retributions against Bruce and meaningless anger.

When it was done, he collapsed in a corner of the room, curled in on himself. Jason sobbed dryly.

She was just a kid, goddammit. She was just a fucking kid, barely older than Jason had been when _he_ died, and god. Bruce had gotten her killed. He’d gotten another fucking kid killed and if Jason’s resurrection had made him realize anything, it was that Stephanie Brown would never have her death avenged either.

* * *

Weeks later, just as whispers of Red Hood started making their way around the city, Jason entered a quiet Gotham cemetery at high noon, a bouquet of flowers cradled in one arm, the hood of his red sweatshirt pulled low over his face.

He ignored the faint unease that being in a cemetery brought up in him, wandering up and down through the rows of headstones until he found the one he was looking for.

STEPHANIE CRYSTAL BROWN

BELOVED DAUGHTER, FRIEND, HERO

and her birth and death dates underneath.

She’d been so young.

Jason gently laid the flowers against the headstone, taking note of how, even this recently after the burial, it showed signs of being taken care of. In part because of Alfred, Jason suspected; Stephanie had been part of the family, such as it was, for even so short a time, and Alfred would honor that dedication to the cause even if Bruce failed to do anything about the one who brought about his newest Robin’s death.

(A part of Jason wondered bitterly how no one had ever noticed him crawling out of his own grave. Surely if Alfred had paid any sort of attention to his grave – if any of them had – he wouldn’t be standing here about to do the things that he was.

Then again, he might not be standing here at all. He might still be in that same state Talia had found him in.)

“Hey,” Jason said, soft. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his sweatshirt. “I know – I know I never knew you. I don’t know if we would have even gotten along, but – he wasn’t – you shouldn’t –” Jason blew out a harsh breath. “You didn’t deserve this. He shouldn’t have let this happen, you didn’t deserve this, and it _wasn’t your fault_.

“Batman should have been there to protect you. After what happened with me, he should have figured that out. He _never_ should have—” Jason cut himself off, shaking his head.

A few moments passed, Jason reading the words on the headstone over and over again, committing the dates to memory.

“I’m going to fix this,” Jason said. “He won’t do anything about this. You know he won’t. He didn’t even for _me_. But I can do it for you.” His voice wavered, dampness threatening at the corners of his eyes. “Just – I need time. I have to do this first. If I get the chance, I’ll try, but the Joker’s _still out there_. I have to – I have to – I won’t let him get away with this, I _promise_. Just give me time.”

Time didn’t matter to the dead anymore, Jason knew.

Still, on her grave he swore. As soon as he was finished, Black Mask would be the next on the list.

* * *

Jason took a whole damn lot of dark amusement in his disruption of Black Mask’s drug trade. He’d been planning this for years, but the fact that it was Black Mask that he was crippling was even sweeter than any of the actions against the other drug dealers and scum he was fighting.

The thing was – it was hard.

It was _so hard_ not to kill Black Mask.

The worst part was that several of his plans balanced on the idea of keeping Black Mask alive for just a little longer, but he wanted him gone. _God_ , how he wanted Black Mask gone.

It would be _easy_. He’d already had several chances, pushing the limits of the attacks he could lay on Black Mask, and not particularly caring if Mask managed to escape them. He was a squirmy little weasel, though, and every time he escaped it informed Jason just what he would need to do to kill him later.

_Soon, Stephanie. I promised you._

In the meantime, however, it looked like all his other plans were coming to fruition.

* * *

Jason dug himself out of the rubble, dizzy and sick from a combination of blood loss and rage, and then he staggered back to one of his safe houses, leaning against too many walls on the way as the world span around him.

The only still point:

Bruce valued the Joker’s life over Jason’s.

He valued his son’s _murderer_ over justice or regard for the _murdered._

He chose that monstrous clown over his own damn _son_ —

Jason spat bloody bile into his toilet, barely able to keep from screaming as he bound his wounds, and then let his head fall back against cool tile and pretended that the tears were only from the physical pain.

* * *

He waited a week and a half, balancing the need to let things die down and Batman to believe he had left (or died, or – who cared what Bruce thought, as long as he didn’t stop Jason again) as well as let himself heal all the injuries from that disastrous final confrontation.

(The scar on his neck was an ugly red, burning like a brand, like betrayal, like his own unchecked rage and eerie eyes that flickered with green that hadn’t been there five years ago.)

Then he went out again.

Even while convalescing, Jason had been keeping tabs on the whereabouts of Black Mask. A good amount of his surveillance was still functional, and he had been trained by the best. It wasn’t difficult to find the man.

The week and a half and the total disappearance of Red Hood from the streets – and whatever rumors were flying about Hood, Batman, and the Joker, because Jason was sure there were some; they hadn’t exactly been avoiding attention – had let Black Mask relax his guard. Literally. He didn’t have many of them around him.

He was overconfident. Probably thought he could take anyone who decided to attack him.

Jason intended for that to be Black Mask’s last, fatal mistake.

Jason hid himself in the shadows and shot Mask’s goons through the head all in a row, quick pulls on the trigger before they could react or try to find him in the shadows.

_Shouldn’t have brought so few, Mask. At least they would have bought you a little more time._

Jason swung down from the rafters of the warehouse and pulled his kris.

Black Mask was scowling at him, hands clenched in fists at his side. “You little shit,” he snarled. “I thought the Bat finally took care of you.”

Jason stalked forward.

“You _are_ one of his, aren’t you?” Mask taunted, trying to stall Jason. Maybe throw him off his game. It wasn’t going to work. Jason had a goal in mind. He didn’t care if Black Mask had figured out the connection between the two of them. “Fell off the Bat’s wagon—?”

Black Mask leapt back from the knife that Jason swept out at him, the deceivingly simple stance he had settled himself in allowing him an easy escape back. He finally pulled a knife of his own.

Jason smiled mirthlessly behind his helmet.

* * *

Black Mask was good.

Jason was better.

He hit at the perfect angle so that the kris stabbed up from beneath the ribs and into Black Mask’s heart. Mask looked almost surprised for half his final heartbeat.

“You killed Robin,” Jason said, uncaring how much the fury and the pain in his voice gave him away. “This is for her.”

* * *

Jason strung up Black Mask’s body in front of the warehouse. Behind it, he painted a note for the police, the newscasters, the criminals. A warning.

_FOR ROBIN IV_

_–RH_

He didn’t paint an H at the end of his name. He painted a Roman two to go along with Stephanie Brown’s designation, and he swiped his fingers roughly through the middle of the lines while the paint was still wet to make pretense for the rest of the world that it was Red Hood who had done it.

B would understand, even if no one else did.

Jason turned and walked away.

**Author's Note:**

> but really though, dead Robins and Jason more like "holy berserk button, Batman!", am I right?
> 
> (Stephanie probably won't thank Jason for it when she comes back, but to Jason, it was worth it. He won't regret it.)
> 
> Probably going to come back to this fic universe later for Batfam reactions and how stuff changes because of this but for now this is it. Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
